The boat left when we were busy squabbling!

Perjuangan Politik Komuniti India dan Kempimpinan Malaysia Indian Congress 1946-2020
(Indian Community Political Struggle and the Leadership of Malaysian Indian Congress 1946-2020)(Malaysian Language; 2023)

Author: Periasamy Muthan, M.A.

The story of Indians sojourning in the Malayan peninsula goes way back to a time before any form of Malay influence was seen here. Traces of its Swarnabhumi history, which is really the root of the cultural civilisation of this region, were systemically hushed by the ruling class to put their version of Malaya where it sprung out of nothing to be civilised by Muslim traders and thinkers.

After the first wave of Indian settlers, who came in around the time of the Malacca sultanate, the second wave arrived at the end of the nineteenth century with the British clerical team. The bulk of Indians, however, were brought in to work in the sugarcane, coffee, and later rubber plantations in the early 20th century. Working under slave-like conditions, the natural leaders amongst them started voicing their dissent.

Even as early as 1923, MIA (Malayan Indian Association) was started, mainly to echo the sentiments of their brethren back home in India against the British colonial powers. They were not really interested in local politics initially. Later, blatant discriminatory wages between the Chinese and Indians spurred demand for rights. In the 1930s, workers got a pittance even when the world rubber price was high. Indian groups soon picked up this issue. Also, by that time, colonist-sanctioned toddy drinking had become a significant social problem. MIA morphed into CIAM (Central Indian Association of Malaya). MIC (Malayan Indian Congress) came to being in 1946. Toddy abuse became a national issue by 1947. Easy access to the vile concoction was blamed.

Living conditions took a turn for the worse during the Japanese occupation. When the British returned after the Second World War, they proposed changes in the country's administration. The Malayan Union stirred strong opposition from the Malays, who considered themselves the land's indigenous people. The Straits Settlements were essentially carved off as British colonies, and the powers of the Malay royalties were clipped.

Funny, the royalties did not raise an eyebrow; they were just ready to ink their signatures on the dotted lines. It was really the educated Malays and political parties who raised hell. The non-Malay groups took interest when the issue of citizenship came up.

By the 1940s, soon after Nehru's and E.V. Periyar's visits, Indians in Malaya started looking at Malaysia as their nation rather than India. India soon became to be seen as Siberia for ethnic Indian wrongdoers who were exiled to India.

In the post-WW2 era, when the British Malaya Administration took charge, many political groups had been established. Some of them were race-based, while others were workers union-based. Communist Party Malaysia was also active in fighting for workers' rights. A truly multiethnic Malayan party was formed with the collaboration of MPAJA, Workers Party, and PUTERA many….. with CPM also giving its input. Guess what? MIC, at its infancy, was a firebrand party led by many professionals who were more interested in fighting the colonial masters rather than playing ball with the colonial master to usurp goodies. MCA and UMNO did just that, to earn business contracts and political favours.

The Malay loyalists, Chinese businessmen, and Indians of Ceylonese descent were quite content with British control of Malaya. They benefitted from their close association and could see no need for self-rule. So when the British finally decided to dispose of their cumbersome colonies after milking them out for decades, they chose to pass the baton to the moderate multiethnic party of the UMNO-MCA alliance rather than to the MPAJA-PUTERA coalition because of its leftist and communist link to it.

The early MIC (morphed from MIA) was a firebrand party that opposed many colonists' ideas. MIC was seen as the spokesperson for the oppressed working-class Indians. With frequent changes in its leadership, MIC evolved to become a Tamil-centric party acting as a voice for estranged estate workers. The earlier leaders were comprised of Punjabis and other North Indians. By 1955, with VT Sambanthan at the helm, the focus was enriching the poor Indians. He proposed a plan to make them landowners.

Cooperating with the majority and going all out to maintain peace and harmony has drawbacks. The top leadership took them as pushovers. It has been mentioned elsewhere that Tunku's top brass leadership sometimes bypassed Sambanthan's input. Tunku is heard to have said, "Sambanthan will agree!"

Sambanthan and many of its subsequent MIC leaders faced stiff criticism from its members. New leaders often came up with ideas that achieved little success. By the 1980s, MIC had gained a dubious reputation for being a loud, argumentative, and political party with chair-hurling members. Many private halls denied renting their premises for MIC functions. MIC finally had to build its own headquarters.

Over time, caste politics crept in. Different factions tried to change the party's direction and how it wanted to improve Malaysian Indians' well-being. Many of its projects could have flourished to their full potential, but sadly, they did not. The later leaders were accused of being autocratic. 

Malaysian society under Mahathir's leadership underwent cataclysmic changes. In his rapaciousness in churning out Malay millionaires overnight, he made significant policy changes. He introduced novel ideas like privatisation and established statutory bodies to improve Malay participation in the nation's economy. Many rubber and palm oil estates were cleared for development. Due to the dearth of adequate vocational skills or academic brilliance, the poor Indians were stuck in the lower rung of the chain and plunged even further down.

MIC and its leaders will claim how successful they have been over the years. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Unlike other countries in the world where Indians are seen holding important professional and academic posts, the situation here is different. Over the years, Indians' economic grip has obviously dwindled. Members of this ethnic group have acquired the unenviable reputation of comprising gangsters and blue-coloured workers. Our prisons have a disproportionately high percentage of Indians. Death of Indians in prison is an accepted norm, indicating how bad their reputation is. Entrance to institutions of higher learning is depressingly low. The civil service, which was at one time reaming with Indians, now is clearly low.

The Hindraf rally in 2007 was the turning point that brought to the fore the ruling government's overtly systemic discriminatory, racist policies. The hegemony of MIC as the sole representative of Indians in the country was shaken. Even after many elections since then, nothing much has actually changed.

I once asked a senior doyen of an observer of Malaysian Indian politics about their discordant improvement of the ethnic group in the country. Look around the world. The Indian diaspora has been labelled as a go-getter able to pull themselves by their bootstraps in no time. Testimonies of these are aplenty - the U.K., Fiji, Uganda, the USA, Trinidad and Tobago, Surinam, Guyana, South Africa and even Tanzania. Who should carry the burden of messing up? Without batting an eyelid, he uttered, ""he leadership"" As we have heard many times before, people are very fickle. They need to figure out what they want. The natural leader amongst them (like a Moses or a Gilgamesh) would rise to show new horizons. Sadly, the boat left while we were still donning our socks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.